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Boston Town Online
A wealth of words: Terence Davies writes and directs an adaptation of
Wharton's 'House of Mirth'
By ED SYMKUS
CNC SENIOR ARTS WRITER

Just as Edith Wharton liked to fill her novels with exposition, with great detail about the smallest of everyday things, so too does Terence Davies, who adapted and directed the film version of Wharton's "The House of Mirth," take great pleasure in words.

They spill out of his mouth, torrents of them, as he tries to arrange the too-many thoughts going on in his head into complex answers to simple questions.

For instance, "The House of Mirth" tells the sad tale of a turn-of-the-century New Yorker (Gillian Anderson) who desperately wants to remain a part of the wealthy society circle she was born into.

But bad luck and a plethora of wrong decisions continually get in her way, resulting in a downward spiral she can't escape from.

Davies is asked why audiences would want to see something this downbeat.

"I don't think it is," he says in the thickest and most elegant of British accents. "I think that any great work, no matter how bleak it might be, tells you something about the human condition. If you want bleakness, listen to the late string quartets of Shostakovich. But behind the bleakness is someone saying, 'But it's worthwhile going on.' And life is always worthwhile. Because other people, on the whole, are worthwhile. Someone only has to give you some kind of succor or compassion, and it kind of revives you."

Davies barely takes a breath, then, fearing his answer isn't clear enough, continues.

"I think the greatest art - and I'm not saying that my film is great art - challenges you to look at life, without rose-colored spectacles, seeing it for what it is, and saying it's worth going on. I mean, look at the late sonnets of Shakespeare; look at, for instance, 'Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore.' It's heartbreaking because it's a memento mori but it ends with a couplet full of hope."

And without warning, Davies, an actor before he started directing such esoteric films as "Distant Voices, Still Lives" and "The Neon Bible," suddenly sits up straight, gets a sort of longing look in his eyes, and starts to recite Sonnet Number 60.

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so our minutes hasten to the end..." He does the whole thing, taking about a minute, and does it beautifully.

Davies is quite obviously a well-read man, and he's a big fan of the Wharton novel. If he weren't, there's no way he would have done the adaptation.

"I can't just do any old thing," he says. "I've got to feel profound about what I do. I've got to see it visually, I've got to hear it aurally. If I can't, then there's no point in my doing it. Someone else should do it. And it's difficult finding projects that you feel that deeply and that passionately about."

But he's stumped when trying to figure out if there was any one character in the story that he identified with.

"I suppose when you write something and you direct something, you identify with them all," he finally says. "Because in order to direct the movie, you've got to inhabit each of those characters. You've got to be able to say, 'This is the underlying logic of that character.' And you've got to feel empathetic to that character. Just as the actors have got to inhabit those characters by being empathetic to them, you have to be.

"If I identified with anybody, it would be with the women, like most gay men," he adds candidly. "I was brought up by my sisters, and I feel at home with women.

"Because there's no ulterior motive. I don't want to go to bed with them. And I think they're funny, especially northern English women. They're really good company. Because they're funny. They're funny. And I love that.

"And I love the minutia of women's talk. I don't like men's talk at all. Because it's usually about sport, and I slip into coma. I can't bear sport. I hate it. Golf is even worse. It's grotesque that grown men take a small ball and knock it into 18 holes. It's Kafkaesque. And it's so boring. But the worst is synchronized swimming.

No, even worse: solo synchronized swimming. That seems to be a contradiction in terms."

There's silence for a moment.

Neither interviewer nor interviewee can quite figure out how the discussion has tacked its way from the life of the old New York .

Umm, I read that Gillian Anderson reminded you of some of John Singer Sargent's paintings, and that's how she got the part.

Is that true?

"She has got a very period face, actually," he says, bouncing right back. "It's slightly fleshy, and not modern. A lot of modern American actors just look modern. But you look at Singer Sargent's people, and they have a look and they know that they own the world. And I saw this in her.

"A photograph came into the office," he continues.

"And I thought, 'That's a Singer Sargent face.' And someone said, 'She's on "The X Files." And I didn't know what that was because I never watch television. She happened to be in London and we had tea together. I told her about the story, she went back to L.A. I sent her the script.

"I then came out to L.A. I auditioned her for one and a half hours. Then I said, 'I think you can do it. Will you do it?' And she said yes. That's how it happened. It's not a flawless beauty, which is also interesting. I think it's Bacon who says, 'There is no great beauty that hath not some flaw in it.' And at some angles, she's not particularly beautiful. But that's as it should be."

Of course, wanting to do a certain film, then putting the film together is only part of the battle.

The film also has to be directed, and reports from the set of "The House of Mirth" hinted that Davies was a bit tough to work with, that he was constantly making everyone do things exactly the way he wanted them done.

"That makes me sound far more tyrannical than I am," says Davies, who seems mildly stunned. "I have a specific idea of what I want; if they do something that's better, I will always say do that. Everybody on the set, no matter who it is, can suggest anything. The other actors may say that I am tyrannical. I don't think I am. I try to make it as fun as possible.

"I think we should all be able to have a laugh on the set. But it's a serious business. And where the acting is concerned, and the look, yes, because that's my job. That's what I'm paid for. If something is not up to the mark, I will say it's not good enough. But I think I'm as democrat as I think it's possible to be, provided I can say at the end of the day, 'No, I'm sorry, it's got to be like this.'"

THE END

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